Balancing Your RC Helicopter Blades

Regardless of whether you got your RC helicopter as a ready to fly, almost ready to fly, or build it yourself kits, the main rotor blades are needed to be aligned and balanced before subjecting the helicopter to its first flight. And although some, ready to fly and almost ready to fly kits proclaim that the rotor blades included in the package are already well matched and balanced, it is always a better choice to check it for yourself. Remember that if you fly your RC helicopter on unbalanced blades, it will cause vibrations to occur in your RC helicopter and may eventually lead to difficulty in flying, hovering, loosen some screws, and interference.

There are a lot of methods that are put into use when balancing rotor blades of an RC helicopter, some more consistent than others. Having perfectly balanced blades will be able to give your RC helicopter better performance and more power because there will be lesser energy that is wasted. Here is a simple method of balancing your rotor blades. This method will also help you minimize the amount of tapes that you will use on your RC helicopter and avoid airflow disruption, at the point where the blades generate the most of their lift.

1. Find the center of gravity

The best way to balance the rotor blade and find its center of gravity is by balancing it on a rod and finding the point where the rotor blade finally balances evenly from its left and right. When you are done with finding each of the blade’s centers of gravity, stack them together facing different directions and place a bolt through the main hole.

2. Match the weights of the Rotor Blades

Weigh each blade prior to balancing. Although you may opt to skip this part, weighing the blades prior to balancing will give you an idea of how closely matched they are, and how much balancing of one blade with the other you will have to do. Using a bolt, attach each rotor blade as a unit and line them up in a straight manner. If you are unable to balance he blade, put a piece of tape near the center of gravity on the lighter blade. Adjust the position of the tape until you find the perfect balance between the two blades.

3. Optimize the tape to balance the weight of the rotor blades

If you didn’t really use that much of tape while balancing your helicopter’s rotor blades, then you’re done and you may opt to skip this part. However, if you find your rotor blade having a huge amount of tape, then you should perform this step, or at least have your blades exchanged for a new set. This step does not require much. Just remove all the tapes you have added prior, and reapply the tapes at a point halfway between the rotor blade’s center of gravity and its tip.Do this until you’re sure that the blades are perfectly balanced with less tape.